


Festering

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Inception (2010), Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Genre: Backstory, Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur lives his life digging out secrets. Statistically speaking, he's going to learn a few things he regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Festering

**Author's Note:**

> **Major spoilers for _Never Let Me Go._**

“At some point you ran into someone who was very good at covering your tracks,” Arthur grumbles, apropos of nothing in particular. Eames glances up from the folder of heat-wilted photographs that he’s currently studying long enough to smirk.

“What makes you think I didn’t do it myself?”

“Because I can track you without too much trouble after the mid-2010s,” Arthur says absently; he hasn’t looked away from his computer screen. “And before you ask, I’m waiting for several key searches on the mark to return their results.”

“And so you’re researching your teammates. I wasn’t going to criticize, but since you bring it up, you really need a hobby.”

“I’m sorry, should I be devoting myself to spider solitaire?”

The casual defensiveness is automatic, but it isn’t actually boredom that drives him. The gaps in his knowledge itch like the skin between his shoulder blades when he turns his back on someone armed. If someone’s hidden background fuckups are going to slip from subconscious to subconscious and send everything to hell – say, by shooting people in the kneecap – Arthur wants to be prepared, this time.

Ariadne tells Arthur that he’s being ridiculous. He doesn’t care. He is frightened of very, very few things: failing his team is third on that list, right under Limbo itself and the possibility that it, or the other vagaries of dreaming, will claim one of the people that he considers _his._

Eames may or may not come under that heading. Depending. But Ariadne is Arthur’s, and Yusuf is gradually worming his way into the team’s good graces and subsequently under that umbrella in spite of certain monetary indiscretions, and that means that if whatever Eames is fleeing starts to cause trouble, they’ll be in the line of fire. And Eames, like most people Arthur knows, is most definitely hiding from _something._

Eames is also, of course, an irritating bastard who likes to needle people.

“Got my biography all drawn up yet?” he asks casually a few days later. Arthur infers that he’s got all he can out of the surveillance recordings he’s currently inspecting, or he had better if he’s screwing around.

“Not yet,” Arthur admits, fingers flying over a hack that he could do blindfolded. “Still can’t figure out what you ran away from.”

Something clatters beyond his range of vision; he glances up to see that Eames has knocked over the pencil cup that Ariadne always leaves in the same place. Interesting. “Is there a problem?” he asks.

“Oh, no. No. I don’t think you’ll have much luck, incidentally.”

“No existence goes unrecorded,” Arthur points out, returning his attention stubbornly to the coding, which he’s starting to suspect has some kind of double-layered trick to it. “Unless you materialized in 2017, there are traces, and I’ll find them eventually.”

“That really sounds quite ominous,” Eames says. “Ariadne, darling, can you put him on a leash?”

“Not my kink and he’s not my type,” she says absently, gesturing reprovingly over her shoulder. “Shut up, I’m trying to work out the staircases.”

They drop the topic, and it doesn’t come up again for three weeks, when Yusuf insists that they do a DNA test on the mark for some detail with the compounds that is quite frankly beyond the scope of Arthur’s understanding. It’s Eames’s job to acquire a sample, and it’s with some pleasure and a slightly lecherous grin that the forger drops by the warehouse late one night to present Arthur with several strands of hair.

“No, I did not sleep with the mark,” he says before Arthur can ask. “Did dance with her a bit, though.”

“As long as she won’t recognize you.” Arthur shrugs, grabbing for one of the plastic bags Yusuf provided. Tomorrow he’ll give it to Yusuf to deliver; hiring someone is faster than doing it himself, apparently. Arthur suspects he’s flirting with the contact, but she could be a useful addition to their network. “Maybe I should send a few bits of your hair along, see if that clears anything up –”

The adrenaline hits him in the same moment as he processes that Eames is going for his gun, but he freezes, eyes blank and wide. Arthur grabs the barrel and forces it sideways, up and past him, advancing as he does. The aggression of the motion, the visible and inexplicable panic, the thrumming underneath his sleep-deprived skin combine into that stupid, stupid need to prove his dominance:

“Someday, Mr. Eames,” he promises, “I _will_ dig your secrets out.”

A blob of spittle hits the floor next to his foot, far more brutal than Eames’s normal well-honed anger. “I’m sure you will,” he snarls, twisting his hand unsuccessfully. “Extracting from me is next on the list, I’d imagine. Maybe torture, after that.”

That one stings, Arthur has to admit. One of the few lines he hasn’t crossed.

“I’ll spare you the effort,” Eames snaps, “give you a hint. British, same age you think I am. Give or take. Bastard in multiple senses. No family. Boarding school education. Infertile.”

Something uncomfortable shifts at the back of Arthur’s consciousness with that last one, but he stifles it, focusing on the tension, the bulging muscles under his fingers, on maintaining control. “None of those are especially helpful, are they.”

“What do you want, a fucking name?” Eames tries to twist loose again; Arthur pinches a tendon and he swears. He doesn’t strike out, doesn’t use his other hand.

“It would be appreciated,” Arthur says blandly. He is well aware that he’s being a horrible fucker right now, and that he ought to care a little more.

Eames grits his teeth visibly, fingers clenching even tighter. “You know, why not. Why not. Andrew E.”

“That’s not what I’d call a full name.”

“Funnily enough, I’d noticed that. I count myself lucky it isn’t a serial number.”

Arthur stares at him, threads congealing: no family, serial numbers, DNA tests frightening him, _infertile_ …

“Fuck’s sake, I know you’re not this stupid. _Hailsham,_ Arthur. I’m from Hailsham.”

Arthur drops Eames’s wrist before he can think.

“That’s impossible.” His voice echoes strangely off the walls. “I’ve been in your head.”

“Yes, funnily enough, us filthy clones don’t think that differently from real people.” Eames is only ever that viciously self-deprecating when he’s hurt enough that he doesn’t care who knows it. It’s the tone of voice that Arthur associates with a need for immediate medical care, and the pre-conditioned spike of concern is sickening and surreal.

“How?” he demands. “Why aren’t you in the donation program?”

“I got lost, of all the ridiculous things,” Eames snorts, grabbing the nearest chair and throwing himself into it. The legs screech against the floor. “Third year as a carer. Damn good one, too, if you can believe it.” The laugh scratches out of him. “Very good at making my friends feel cheerful about being walking organ farms.”

Arthur hates feeling sympathy and Eames hates everything that looks like pity, so Arthur tamps down that along with the disgust clogging his throat. He _kissed_ Eames, once – diversionary tactic, but still. “And you _got lost_?”

“That’s what I said. Happened to stumble into a gang of thieves not nearly bloody-minded enough for their own good, nabbed me and kept me fed while they tried to decide what to do. Stockholm Syndrome outweighs brainwashing, evidently, and after that they got me into dreaming.”

“Why?”

“Figured the hospitals wouldn’t want me back after I’d pumped myself full of experimental compounds. Same reason I started smoking.”

Arthur realizes that he’s wiping his hand on his trousers. It takes some effort to stop. “Makes sense, I suppose. Any longstanding traumas I should know about?”

“Besides the obvious?”

Besides the obvi – oh. Yes, it would be traumatic, wouldn’t it, nursing your friends as they got their organs lifted out of them, knowing that you’d be doing the same a few years on?

“So,” Eames says, tapping his fingers on the table and avoiding Arthur’s eyes, “shall I clear everything out now, or wait so I can explain things to your replacement forger?”

“Replace – I wasn’t planning on cutting you loose.” Artificial or not, _unnatural_ or not, Eames is a reliable forger, and they don’t have time to find a replacement. Caring about natural is more than a little hypocritical in this job anyway, as sickening as the whole thing is. “Unless you’re leaving.”

“I don’t feel the need,” Eames grits out, shoving himself to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to clear out a hotel bar. Don’t worry, I’ll be functional in the morning.”

“Don’t make yourself miserable, either.” The response is reflexive – Eames is a melodramatic nightmare when he’s hungover, however capable of working he remains – but it’s enough to make Eames pause in the doorway. He doesn’t turn around.

“Seeing as I know you can’t pretend this never happened, it’s your job to explain all this to Yusuf and Ariadne. Make something up or tell them the truth, I don’t care.” The door swings closed behind him, and Arthur breathes carefully for three beats before he staggers to a chair. He tells himself it’s just coincidence that it’s not the one that Eames was sitting in.

Seven years ago, he got a blood transfusion in England, one that he knows was from cloned blood. This is the first time that he’s felt uncomfortable about it. The bar is sounding like a rather good idea.


End file.
